The Dominion Mandate: The Modern Implication.

Today, our communication medium is inundated with what is known as ' prosperity messages'. These kinds of messages are almost a signature tune of later Days Pastors.

They are so vociferous in making the claim to their hearers that God's intention for man is to bless man in abundance. That every man is entitled to blessings beyond measure.

These pastors base their prosperity sermons on what is known as 'The Dominion Mandate'. This mandate is found in Genesis Chapter 1 verse 28. In summary, God mandated humankind to fill, subdue and to rule the earth.

In fact, this verse is one of the most debatable texts in the bible. Thus the text yields itself to different interpretations. It somehow gives a moral justification for anyone to pursue a satisfaction of one's personal greed without recourse to how ones desire to amass the so - called blessings of God affects his neighbor.

History teaches us that many centuries ago, the continent of Africa fell victim of man's insatiable greed. First, we were hunted and sold as slaves to till lands in the Americas. Africa was deprived of the man power that it needed to develop. Later, the same kind of people who depleted our human resources for their selfish interest , came back to annex our lands and rule over us. Whilst here, they depleted our natural resources to create luxuries for themselves back home.

These vultures that preyed on us, justify their act of immorality and inhumanity to us on the literal translation of the ' dominion mandate'. They actually believed they were only fulfilling ' a divine manadate'.

In recent times, we've heard about the call for 'reparations'. The call is to those who benefited from the dehumanization and depletion of the resources of Africa to make some efforts to appease us. It is to this effect that many welcomed the US Senate's resolution in 2009 apologizing for their country's involvement in the oppression of African Americans.

And so when I hear, ' Later Days black pastors' preaching prosperity messages based on the literal translation of the ' dominion mandate', I cringe. For me, as a black man, this verse read and interpreted literally is a ' taboo' matter. It is like how ' ntam kese' would be for an Asante.

Now, let us for the purpose of argument assume that this philosophy is as relevant to be preached today as it was in the past. How would the ordinary young man in this country be able to operationalize this mandate? First of all, we have a very poor educational system in this country. How would it be possible for that young man without competitive skills to take on the world? How would that African young man get the resources to start himself up in a business? How would that African young man survive in business under this high interest rate regime? How would small businesses of the African youths survive within the competitive international industrial trade systems?

It may not be a daunting challenge for someone who have some cheap resources from somewhere to invest in his pursuit to amass wealth.

The people who came here and are still coming to annex our territories were and are well resourced. They had some financial mettle; and they had ammunition to fight resistance from the prey.

I think that prosperity messages as delivered on pulpits by some members of the clergy may not in the long run inure to the benefit of our society. For me, these clergy men are only hanging on these messages to their congregants because it somehow gives a moral justification for their quest to amass wealth in the name of a man who came to live and die poor.

In any case, our world is waking up to the realization of unbridled capitalism. The passing away of Fidel Castro had resurrected the call to the world to look again at the ills of capitalism. We are called to look at the practice where a few individuals would feel they have the inalienable right to own the production and distribution of wealth in our society. Fidel Castro's death calls on us to look at the other option. The other option opened to us is to create an economy where the means of production and distribution of resources would be owned by the working people.

This would mean that if a church operates a school runned as a business with the initial capital from the offerings of the congregants, it would be fair to return the profits made from this business venture to the people.

Everybody in the end gets a little of the pie. That I think would be the beginning of us creating a just society; not the kind of society that some few people are empowered to have and have and have.

For me, this is the kind of messages I wish our pastors would be interested in in delivering on the pulpits; that is if they think they have finished fulfilling their core mandate of their master to them : that is to preach repentance of sin; to preach Christ as the savior of the world; and to prepare the world for the kingdom of God.

PAUL ZOWONU
TUTOR- ACCRA